eczema

Playing in the snow... or death gripping mommy's hand while we stomp our shoes in it and bend down and touch the wet white stuff.... you decide.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to sit down and write a post. Too long. But so much has been happening in this cramped little house of ours.

To start with good news, we found out why our little guy’s skin had gotten so bad. On bad news, I found out I’ve been poisoning him pretty much since we started feeding him solids. We’ve always spoon fed him, but recently we’ve started letting him try to pick up pieces of his food. So instead of mashing up his banana, we decided to cut it up into chunks and let him touch it. Don’t you know his poor little hands broke out so red and swollen. His face and every part of his head that he touched broke out terribly. It’s so frustrating! Just when I think I’ve got it figured out, it all blows up on me again. Bananas. Are you freaking kidding me? And you know what? Continue reading →

This is our boy an hour after we gave him Hyland's Baby Teething Tablets.

Thanks to a couple of great women (I’m looking at you Tad and Meg), I tried out Hyland’s Baby Teething Tablets. I was so nervous to give him something without discussing it with his doctor, especially because of his skin. I talked to my mom, as well as a few friends, and received mixed reviews. Some said it was a welcome relief to their little one, and others said they noticed no improvement. What I did not receive, was one mention of a negative impact on their child. So we bought some the next day and gave them to him before dinner. Continue reading →

Like this:

He gets so excited when he hears the theme song to Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Finally got a good picture of him when it starts.

Ugh. I feel like we’ll never win this fight against eczema. We’ve been keeping on top of it with nightly baths, weekly oatmeal baths, and twice daily lotion. I triple check everything. Did I wash that in Dreft? I removed all dryer sheets and fabric softener, right? What new foods did he try this week? But don’t you know it… he had another flare up. This one just doesn’t seem to want to go away. Well baby boy had his 9 month wellness check up and they told us he’s perfectly healthy! Except his skin. It’s infected. Again. UGH! Continue reading →

Watson and I finally made a tough decision. We’ve decided to wean our baby boy off of breastmilk and onto formula. Between gluten and cow’s milk allergies I’m too afraid to eat anything for fear of poisoning my son. And who knows if that is all he is allergic to! And at this point I’m so limited on what I can eat that I’m not getting enough calories to keep my supply up. Continue reading →

Wow. Can you believe it’s been 3 weeks since my last post? You’d think I fell off the face of the earth! Between doctors appointments, vacation, and teething we’ve been going crazy over here.

We spent a wonderful week in Lake Placid enjoying the fresh air and the view of mountains covered in colorful trees. Unfortunately we found that our little guy does not like sleeping in the pack and play overnight. I actually think we came home more tired than when we left! But he loves watching the leaves all over the ground and certainly enjoyed the change of scenery. A big surprise for us was the amount of hair that started coming in on his head finally!

My baby boy had his 6 month checkup with the doctors office (shots included). His skin has been slowly improving, but his legs are still terrible. Doctor told us they aren’t healing because he has another skin infection. Just a couple days after the antibiotics and his legs are looking great!! But can I just tell you… I have never found myself so mad with a nurse before. I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a difference between “owie” crying, and “holy god that really hurts” screaming. The agony on his face and the noise of that tiny little body instantly ripped me into peices. When the nurse pulled the needle out of his leg, it started a river of blood down his leg immediately. And to make it worse, she bruised him at both injection sites on the one little leg. Now I realize that these immunizations are for his well being, but damn lady! You don’t need to stick the needle that deep! He’s all of 26 pounds! I probably ranted about this for 3 days I was so upset. My little guy? He was over it as soon as the Motrin kicked in and had a good cuddle with his momma.

And finally, teething. Ugh. Is there anything worse? Feeling him tense up and scream with pain when it is at it’s worst literally kills me inside. If you don’t know what a Razbaby RaZ-berry Teether is, go find one. It made such a huge difference for him. He likes to grab onto the handle and munch on that poor little sucker anyway he can. He sticks to each side, bites down and pulls it out, anything that simply makes him feel better. He even recognizes it now and starts chewing on it the second you put it near his face.

So that has been this little family’s adventures. It’s been hard getting back into a routine, but we finally are getting back to our rhythm. I hope you’ve all been enjoying your own little adventures! I have lots of blog posts to catch up on!

Our baby boy after a little Similac formula. I don't think we'll use that again.

So in the last couple months Watson has been seeing the doctor and trying to get healthy (finally *insert cheer*). I swore to him that when he was ready to get healthy, we’d go all in and do it together. We’ve gone to the nutritionist twice and have been making adjustments as we travel along our path to a healthier life style. The big one for our house has been wheat. I love white bread. I love it so much there is no real way to perfectly explain to you how happy it would make me to have a loaf of Italian bread with butter for dinner. LOVE it. I’ve never eaten whole wheat anything. I’ve hated wheat, rye, whole grain everything since I was a kid. So when I say a big change, I mean huge. Whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat crackers, and brown rice. The ingredients can not say enriched wheat, it has to be stone ground.

Since this change I’ve been having more and more stomach problems. I’m not talking a tummy ache after eating too much sugar pain. I’m talking curled up in a ball in the corner of my bed praying the pain stops. It got so bad I could barely nurse my son in the middle of the night. Continue reading →

Today was the day of his dreaded 4 month checkup. This is the first time the doctor has seen him since he first prescribed antibiotics to help fight a skin infection developed from the Eczema. So the checkup consisted of all the normal chatter. We talked more about our little guys skin. It has improved, but is still in pretty rough condition. We’ve recently found that the Aveeno Baby Daily Moisturizer is actually working much better than the Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy even did. So we’re already applying the lotion 3-4 times a day on top of nightly baths. And now we’re trying a topical antibiotic instead of the oral. Hoping it heals the spots left that are really bad.